


Over the Hills and Far Away

by swaneewhistleandkazoo



Category: Carnival Row (TV)
Genre: Almost Kiss, Developing Relationship, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Internal Conflict, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Longing, Missing Scene, Parkour, Play Fighting, Pre-Relationship, Romance, Season 1 Episode 3, Snowball Fight, Speculation, minor self loathing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 21:29:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20607629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swaneewhistleandkazoo/pseuds/swaneewhistleandkazoo
Summary: While on watch duty Philo and Vignette grow closer to each other.





	Over the Hills and Far Away

Perched high on his lookout post on top of a rocky outcrop overlooking the mountains of Anoun, Philo shivered and huddled deeper into the warm depths of his great coat. Despite it being a fine day, the wan sunlight was weak and completely overwhelmed by driving, teeth achingly cold wind that kept maliciously whistling in from the north. It whipped up the light layer of snow sending flakes spiralling into the air, stinging at his cold exposed skin and getting in his eyes.

He shifted his grip on his rifle getting a better grip on the butt and raised the scope to his eye and used it to scan the horizon.

For miles in every direction he could see nothing but the rocky crags and tors, the chaotic jumble of boulders of varying sizes, interspersed with twisted trees and stunted brush. Snow lay thickly in the dips and hollows and thin smatterings lay in the shadows where the sun hadn't melted it yet. Ravines and gullies, some hundreds of metres deep and waiting for the unwary traveller to put their foot through, etched into the solid rock by the movement of weather and ice over millions of years. The pine trees, their evergreen branches swaying in the wind, their needles rattling sent the spicy tang of oozing pine resin filled his senses.

It was a difficult land, hard to travel and navigate through, full of hidden dangers and impassable obstacles. Standing there looking out at it all it was no wonder to him that the Faeries had developed the ability to fly so they live in this beautiful unforgiving land.

Most of his fellow Burgish soldiers despised the daily patrol, away from the sheltering walls of the mimisary and exposed to the harsh and changeable weather of the Highlands, searching for the Pact.

But Philo loved it.

He loved the wildness of it. The freedom. The silence of the forest was a welcome relief after the noise and bustle of the overcrowded mimistary crammed to the rafters with soldiers and refugees. He even didn’t mind the cold.

Regardless of the dangers, the lurking Pact, the dizzying heights, the hazardous weather or creeping fae predators that would like a nice tasty mouthful of an inattentive half blood he felt perfectly at ease here.

He couldn’t explain why, would certainly never mention it to his fellow soldiers not even Darius his oldest friend and brother, but the whole area just felt familiar. It reached out and touched his soul and it felt less like an arrival and more like a home coming.

All his life, despite the relative kindness from Headmaster Finch, he’d been ashamed of his half fae heritage, his wings shorn way to hid who he was, a deep and painful bereavement, the sense of loss that still hurt even as an adult. For so long he’d kept the secret hidden away locked deep inside himself never to be voiced or spoken about had made him feel like he was dirty, unclean, something born of lust and sin.

The ill-gotten mongrel born from the joining of two unlike things.

He’d tried to distance himself from his fae heritage until he’d arrived in Tiranoc, seeing the people here, his people, he’d been overwhelmed by the sensation of repatriation and begun to accept all of himself. After that he’d searched every fae face for features like his own, especially since they’d reached Anoun, and internally questioned them.

_Did you know my mother or father? Whoever they were. _

_I’ve lost someone can you help me find them? _

_Do I look like you? Do you look like me?_

_Have you lost a son? A grandchild? Or a nephew? _

_Are we kin? _

No one had answered him.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when a redstart alighted on the stubby gorse bushed clinging stubbornly to the rock next to him dislodging an avalanche of snow. Biting back a curse he glared at it annoyed at being distracted from his watch by his sullen thoughts, he was a soldier damm it, not a lost little boy brooding pointlessly over things he couldn’t change.

Enviously he watched it soar off into the sky with a flick of its wings and a lilting trill. 

Suddenly the hair on the back of his neck prickled an electric sensation and put all of his senses on high alert. He spun around, simultaneously raising his rifle his forefinger curling around the trigger.

Fir, squat bushes, snow covered boulders. Nothing else.

The redstart landed on the nearby limb of the closest fir tree. The bird regarded him with its guileless beady black eyes and preened the reddish orange feathers of its chest with short jerky movements of its little beak. It bobbed its head at him, chirped and flew away.

Without moving the make himself a target he followed it with his eyes in the direction it had flown away from.

Dripping fir trees. Snowy outcrops of granite. Tangled thicket. Dense. Impenetrable.

But suddenly, less than fifteen metres away the branches stirred.

It could be anything, a Pact patrol, one of those wolf monsters Vignette had called a Marrok. Ruthlessly quashing his unnerved thoughts he brought the rifle up to his shoulder and cocked the rifle ready to fire. 

A low hiss. Again the branches stirred.

He tensed.

A snowball hit him on the back of the head.

Yelping in a distinctly unmanly fashion he batted frantically trying to brush the worst of it away. Cold fragments of snow broke off and somehow found their way down between his neck and collar, the compact snow caused goose bumps to erupt along his spine and he shivered violently.

“Damm it, Vignette!” He bellowed, hopping madly from foot to foot trying to shake off the remaining bits of ice inside his shirt and put his rifle down to really reach in and get the last of it out. She grinned impishly down at him, crouching on a snow covered boulder him, her green eyes gleaming, mischief lighting up her striking features.

She’d been attractive when she’d held a knife to his throat in the library, she’d been pretty when glaring surly at him across the courtyard. But here now cheerful and carefree she’s stunning. His heart did a funny flip in his chest and he had to focus on what could have happened to her to stop himself from grinning dopily back at her.

Shouldering his rifle he scowled at her “I could have shot you!”

He felt cold, she could have been killed. Shot out of the sky like a game bird, to fallen and shatter her body on jagged rocks far below them. Since their first conversation about his book they’d slowly been growing closer and closer. The thought of their tentative bond being snuffed out for ever horrified him.

With careless grace and a flutter of gossamer wings she stepped of the boulder, oblivious to the long drop below her and flittered over to him. He swallowed hard and bit his lip. As she dropped down to stand next to him she had the decency to look mollified.

“I’m sorry, Philo” She looked up at him, her short hair dancing riotously in the breeze she’d stirred up with her wings. Like all fae she was short if he pulled her in his arms he could have easily rested his chin on the top of her head, he pushed that tempting image away from him. “You were just standing there and I couldn’t resist”

“s’ok” He gave an ineffective tug at the lapels of his coat to straighten it in an effort to disguise that his emotion were running wild. “Just don’t do it with anyone but me, they’ll definitely shoot you first ask questions later. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you”

Vignette shrugged one shoulder wordlessly accepting his warning and agreeing with him. Before dissolving into helpless giggles “You should have seen your face!” Her mirth was infectious, she had gotten him and he found himself laughing along with her.

Giving her a playful nudge with his shoulder he went to lean his rifle against a nearby rock. “I’ll get you back for this” he told her teasingly. Surreptitiously he scooped up a double handful of snow and patted it into a firm ball, a beam of weak sunlight caught the glistening snowball making it sparkle like a thousand diamond had been imbedded in it.

“Oh” She arched a challenging eyebrow at him, her wings twitched with excitement “Really?”

His grin was so wide it hurt his cheeks “Really” It felt good, after spending so long in the horrors of the war, worrying about his men and barking orders, the ever advancing tide of the Pact occupied territory, just to let go and have fun with someone he loved…… He cut that thought off sharply; nothing good could come of it. He’d break her heart or she’d break his. He doubted she even thought of him with that way, any permanence at least. No it was better to lock that absurd dream that she could love him, all of him, in the darkest most secret part of his heart.

Even though he tried to quash his feeling for her down the ways she was looking at him made

“Ok” She bit her lip, her teeth making little indentation in her full pink lips that he wanted to kiss better, her eyes lingering on him as he slowly drew himself up to his full height the snowball slowly turning his fingers numb. “I’ll give you a fighting chance.”

“No wings” There was something magical about her holding him under a spell, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“No wings” She agreed her eyes fixed on his face and gave herself a little shake as if she was caught in the same spell he was. She took a teasing step backwards “See if you can keep up, Faan-troight.”

Grinning he lunged catlike snowball in hand ready to shove his snowball down the back of her tunic with a shout of laughter she pirouetted to one side and raced off moving deftly from rock to rock, dodging around the fir trees, a branch sprung back and him in the face but he was still hot on her heels.

All of his life he’d been uncommonly good at finding his way over unfamiliar territory, finding hand and footholds on the tiniest of ledges that his fellow men struggled to balance on and he had absolutely no fear of heights. It was something he’d never noticed until he came arrived in Tiranoc just thought it was another weird trait of his. Like Darius’s ability to tell when an instrument was out of tune. But racing through the snow covered uneven ground, watching Vignette as she moved as agilely and fearlessly in a manner identical as he did it made him wonder if it maybe this trait had passed down to him from his fae parent, compensating for the loss of his wings.

Willing to be dragged back into the past and ruin his time with Vignette he gritted his teeth and forced thoughts of his past away and focused solely on the present. The wind kicked up again and light flurries of small snowflakes dance and twisted in the air. Sure footed as wild goats they raced around the rocky hillside around and over the great rough stones along ledges of the cliff with a tremendous drop on one side, dodging surprise attacks and pelting each other with snowballs running across it upwards to the rocky tor outcrop.

Teetering on the edge of the tor he knew that just up ahead was a gap in the rocks too far for a man to leap and since she’d promised not to fly he’d have her trapped. Tasting victory and grinning to himself he forced himself into a sprint only to see her gravity defying barely checked leap from the granite outcrop, use the towering column of granite to their left as a foothold to propel herself across the remaining gap. Perched on the rock opposite she grinned at his astonished expression.

“You said no flying!” He yelled at her indignantly.

“I didn’t” She shouted back.

Giving himself a bit more of a run up he sprinted for the edge, he’d learned early on in his climbing career that hesitating when you’d committed yourself lead to worse injuries and gave a flying leap to the foothold Vignette had used to propel himself the rest of the way to the other side of chasm. He rolled to reduce the force of the impact and came up kneeling. He grinned up at Vignette who gazed down at him wide eyed with amazement.

While she was distracted by his amazing athletic ability he took the advantage and tackled her sending them skidding down into a sheltered hollow, sending up flurries of snow. In a messy tangle of limbs they wrestled for the advantage eventually he managed to get a hold of her wrists and bringing his greater weight to bear and pin her but they were both laughing so much it and out of breathe it made it impossible.

Eventually he realised that she’d stopped her token struggling and lay beneath him pressed along the length of his body. Delicate flakes of snow had settled on her short dark hair which was starting to curl and on her high cheekbones. It was downright romantic. Without realising what he was doing he lightly cupped her jaw and gently brushed the snowflakes of her cheek with his thumb. Her skin was so smooth he closed his eyes, savouring the sensation.

Chests heaving in tandem from their exertions he let himself get wrapped up in her. Something changed nothing existed outside her and their game and her fingers tangled in the soft curls at the base of his neck holding him to her. The Martyr, Saint Tatiana, Mina Roosen and his Captain could have been doing the rhumba right beside them and he wouldn’t have noticed anything except the way Vignette was looking at him right now.

Her gaze dropped down to linger on his lips before flicking up to meet his eyes and he found himself leaning in.

“Philo!” Darius’s voice rang out through the trees, a very unwelcome pitcher of icy cold water poured over his head “Where are you Mate?!”

Regretfully he drew back squatting back on his heels to brush the snow off of his clothing Vignette lay in the snow with her eyes closed for a moment before springing gymnastically to her feet. They regarded each other for a moment before she reached out slowly and brushed the snow out of his beard, her slim fingers were gentle, an apology maybe? Before she stepped away from him just as Darius slid down to join them.

He didn’t say anything but his nostrils flared slightly like he was scenting the air and his eyes gleamed with a disapproving glowing look silently he handed Philo his forgotten rifle.

“The Captain’s looking for you” Darius said slowly “Wants us to splice another 50 feet of cable over the ravine so it doesn’t snap in that storm forecast for tonight.” He turned to Vignette who was brushing snow of her back. “Are you willing to tag along and give us a hand? We’ll be done quicker if you do. Less chance of us being eaten by Marroks too”

She regarded him guilelessly “Just as long as Mina Roosen released me from my duties this afternoon” she replied shortly her voice lilting

“She did” None of the fae liked taking orders from Burgishmen so their Captain had found the most effective way of getting them to do anything was to convince Mina Roosen to ask them to do it for her.

“Fine” she stepped lightly out of the hollow, he watched her go in a daze.

“Here” Darius handed him his rifle, absently he took it without really thinking about to, the cool wood and metal deeply unpleasant compared to the feeling of Vignette’s skin against his. “Come on Mate. Dote on your girlfriend on your own time!” Darius’s warm hand landed on his shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

After they'd installed the new wire on their way back to the Mimistary he managed forfill his vow and got the drop of Vignette who was lost in her own thought with a well aimed snowball which had made her laugh then they'd both ganged up on Darius until he begged for mercy. Anything to distract himself from his longing for a future with Vignette.

It was a pipe dream anyway. Him and Vignette beginning together what with the war going on, a war that they were on the losing side off and the increasing likelihood of one or both of them being killed during an Pact attach as the front drew ever closer.

But he could dream.

And no matter where he was, no matter how far the distance, his heart would always stray back to her.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed.


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